TMFDeej (99.47)

Cap and Trade: Hop on the next bubble before it inflates

29

It's amazing that the cap and trade bill that is being debated in Congress right now is not receiving more media attention. If it passes, this bill will have a direct impact upon every single person in the United States in the form of a higher electric bill and an indirect impact on them in the form of more expensive goods and services and lost manufacturing jobs.

As someone whose political beliefs tend to be middle of the road, I hate both parties equally, I got sick of all of the press conferences, the Al Gore watch, and CBO studies which significantly underestimate the future cost of the program ($175 per household my bass). So I thought to myself where can I find some good right-wing propaganda to balance the argument out because after all, as I always say the truth usually lies somewhere in the middle. I knew just where to look, Rupert Murdoch's new toy...the Wall Street Journal. And I wasn't disappointed. The WSJ published the following article on the subject of cap and trade today:

While the Nancy Pelosi, Henry Waxman, and friends are running around touting the CBO estimate that the new bill will only cost "no more than a postage stamp a day" (what is that now after the inept USPS raised it for the 100th time yet still manages to lose money, a buck?). Here's the right-wingers' estimate of how much the program will cost:

To get support for his bill, Mr. Waxman was forced to water down the cap in early years to please rural Democrats, and then severely ratchet it up in later years to please liberal Democrats. The CBO's analysis looks solely at the year 2020, before most of the tough restrictions kick in. As the cap is tightened and companies are stripped of initial opportunities to "offset" their emissions, the price of permits will skyrocket beyond the CBO estimate of $28 per ton of carbon. The corporate costs of buying these expensive permits will be passed to consumers...

The biggest doozy in the CBO analysis was its extraordinary decision to look only at the day-to-day costs of operating a trading program, rather than the wider consequences energy restriction would have on the economy. The CBO acknowledges this in a footnote: "The resource cost does not indicate the potential decrease in gross domestic product (GDP) that could result from the cap."

The hit to GDP is the real threat in this bill. The whole point of cap and trade is to hike the price of electricity and gas so that Americans will use less. These higher prices will show up not just in electricity bills or at the gas station but in every manufactured good, from food to cars. Consumers will cut back on spending, which in turn will cut back on production, which results in fewer jobs created or higher unemployment. Some companies will instead move their operations overseas, with the same result.

When the Heritage Foundation did its analysis of Waxman-Markey, it broadly compared the economy with and without the carbon tax. Under this more comprehensive scenario, it found Waxman-Markey would cost the economy $161 billion in 2020, which is $1,870 for a family of four. As the bill's restrictions kick in, that number rises to $6,800 for a family of four by 2035.

I have about as much faith in the conservative Heritage Foundation's estimate of the bill's cost as I do to the postage stamp per day estimate that the Dems are talking about. In reality, unless this legislation causes a huge boom in "green" jobs in the United States that replace the jobs that will likely be lost to factories in countries that have less restrictive pollution policies and the drag on the economy from the reduction in consumer spending that higher electric bills and more expensive goods and services will cause I don't see how the passage of cap and trade is not a major negative for the U.S. economy.

Oh wait, I almost forgot...there is actually one group that will benefit from the new cap and trade legislation. The good old scumbags at Goldman Sachs (whose employees donated nearly a million dollars to Obama and $4.5 million to Democrats in the last campaign...I'm just sayin'). Goldman has spent $3.5 million lobbying on climate issues. The firm currently owns 10% of the Chicago Climate Exchange, where the carbon credits will likely be traded. It also owns a stake in a company called Blue Source, which sells carbon credits. The company has all sorts of ways to make money off of a cap and trade system and you can bet your sweet tail that it would rake in huge money if one is passed.

Two of the larger positions in my portfolio are the clean power companies FPL Group and Exelon. At worst, they are two relatively well-run, conservative companies that pay solid dividends, but if cap and trade passes...look out. I have positioned myself to take advantage of the next bubble before Goldman has a chance to blow it up. Pay close attention to the cap and trade bill that Congress is debating right now. If it passes and actually makes it through the Senate you had better purchase stocks that will benefit from the legislation to help hedge the rising cost of everything else in the country.

Author's note: I'm not against regulating pollution. I think that pollution controls are very necessary. I like animals and trees better than I like most people. As I have said in the past, I'm not sure what is the best solution to the problem...or if carbon is even causing global warming for that matter. I don't think that cap and trade is it. I can see too many people who aren't supposed to be profiting from it doing so. I'd rather see the government raise the gasoline tax by $0.50 per gallon and use the proceeds to fund cheap loans for clean power plants and research on green projects.

Heck, I'd even rather see the government take all of the money that it is peeing away bailing out all of the irresponsible banks and homeowners and use it buy up vacant houses, plow them into the ground, and plant a ton carbon-eating trees. We could kill two birds with one stone, Global Warming and the Economic Meltdown caused by falling home values. I'm only kidding about this idea, but I'm sad to say that it might actually work a lot better than some of the real ideas that have been floating around out there like P-PIMP, TARP, etc...

Heck, I'd even rather see the government take all of the money that it is peeing away bailing out all of the irresponsible banks and homeowners and use it buy up vacant houses, plow them into the ground, and plant a ton carbon-eating trees.

Author's note: I'm not against regulating pollution. I think that pollution controls are very necessary. I like animals and trees better than I like most people. As I have said in the past, I'm not sure what is the best solution to the problem...or if carbon is even causing global warming for that matter. I don't think that cap and trade is it. I can see too many people who aren't supposed to be profiting from it doing so. I'd rather see the government raise the gasoline tax by $0.50 per gallon and use the proceeds to fund cheap loans for clean power plants and research on green projects.

Nobody on the "left" even thinks this will work. It will allow some of the milder warming scenarios to be tested. And the unknowns in those scenarios range from problem to disaster.

'Heck, I'd even rather see the government take all of the money that it is peeing away bailing out all of the irresponsible banks and homeowners and use it buy up vacant houses, plow them into the ground, and plant a ton carbon-eating trees.

Don't tell the tree-huggers this. They will lord it over capitalists for years that they warned save the trees to begin with.

"this bill will have a direct impact upon every single person in the United States in the form of a higher electric bill".

Good!! Maybe then some of you morons will turn the TV off once in a while. Maybe you can also learn to turn lights off when you leave a room.

I for one would be glad to pay an extra $500 or even a $1000 dollars a year in exchange for cleaner air and water. We all paid thousands more a year in fuel costs over the last few years and what do we have to show for it?

#6 -- How about the combined effect of both Cap and Trade and the medical bill?

As I understand it, worst case scenario is that every industry will have to account for their carbon footprint...and I've yet to see a clear line in the sand where someone says "This is as far as it goes."

So, the medical industry uses a lot of plastics (carbon footprint), mechanical devices (carbon footprint during production), electricity for extravagances like ICUs and respirators (big carbon footprint), and one-time-use needles, syringes, tubes, bandages, and pill bottles....all of which have a carbon footprint to produce,use, and dispose of...

...and don't forget the paperwork and computers--lots and lots of electricity, waste, and plastics...

NOTvuffett OK Smart guy! What comes out of the stack of a coal fired power plant isn't just carbon dioxide, so if you cap emissions (carbon) you are also capping, mercury and other cancer causing bi products of burning carbon based fuels. So with that you can eff off and remember to turn the lights out while you do it.

Of course you're making a valid argument about saying that the carbon footprint of the health care industry needs to be reduced. But the carbon footprint of every industry needs to be reduced.

In light of the blog that was posted I'm simply referring to the costs/family of the cap and trade bill versus the costs/family of health care projections. The per family annual premium for health insurance was $11,941 in 2006. Using an annual growth rate of only 4%, which is very conservative, premiums for familes will be greater than $45,000 per year. $45,000 (which is conservative) scares me a lot more than $6,800 (which is probably on the high end).

Maybe people are over stating how badly cap and trade is going to hamper the economy... From what I've read the past couple of months, the unpopular but better choice would have been a carbon tax. But at least this is a start toward reducing carbon emissions, right? Baby steps...

brad, I don't like coal either for electric power. A power plant will put out tons of mercury and nitogen and sulfer oxides. The French actually have this one right, they get over 70% of their power from nuclear.

I agree that, on a cost basis, the health insurance debate is a lot more immediate. And, even without the argument of Global Warming, continual pollution and the pervasive use of non-renewable resources is a dead end...sooner or later, you're going to paint yourself in a corner.

However, being a financial web site, I feel that the more important theme here is the economic impact of such actions. And, my particular pet peeve is unintended consequences, those "how did it all go wrong" moments when everyone is suddenly pointing at that thing someone did that brought it all crumbling down...or, at least, started the cracks in the system.

For Cap and Trade, I believe that the unintended consequences are...monumental, to say the least.

Global warming is a joke!!!!! Therefore the basis for the whole Cap 'N Trade bill is a joke as well. The government is great for coming up with scams, and global warming is another great one. The real scientific evidence supports natural climate change and temperature variation that happens on earth. The earth isn't going to last forever, and I believe we are supposed to take care of it, but remember that the Lord put us (mankind) over animals and other living things. If we have natural resources that we can use, we should use them!

"And, even without the argument of Global Warming, continual pollution and the pervasive use of non-renewable resources is a dead end...sooner or later, you're going to paint yourself in a corner."

I agree whole heartedly. While sustainability is very theoretical (especially when population growth is exponential), striving to achieve sustainability needs to happen. Cap and Trade could potentially promote more sustainable technologies like nuclear, wind, solar, and tidal (I understand these aren't fully sustainable). What's so bad about that? Is it simply the capital investment required? Is it the lobbying that's going to occur on Wall Street? Lobbying is going to occur on Wall Street regardless...

Deej says in this blog "I'm not sure what is the best solution to the problem." No one knows what the best solution is. A carbon tax (which seems to be the best option) would probably have been too difficult to pass, leaving Cap and Trade left on the table.

"There's no such thing as Global Warming and in fact we are cooling off... Climate change is absolutely NORMAL and is part of every planet in the Universe from its inception to its death."

"Global warming is a joke!!!!! Therefore the basis for the whole Cap 'N Trade bill is a joke as well. The government is great for coming up with scams, and global warming is another great one. The real scientific evidence supports natural climate change and temperature variation that happens on earth."

Yes! Man I love how right when the Obama admin. got in there the new switched from the war and what not to "Global Warming!" and "Abortion!"

Don't get me wrong, I like Obama and I hope the he can acomplish all the things he said he would (Although now I am having huge doubts about healthcare).

All this talk about Cap and Trade and Healthcare is kind of scary. I mean do you guys really think that it will be the way some of you are saying?

How can we even manage through that? If there is crazy inflation wouldn't stocks in general go up in price to, so being in equities will be a safe-guard? Or would it really matter exactly what sectors your money sits in?

Oh ya, this is a great debate! I like reading things like this where people actualy give thought into what they say.

"I agree whole heartedly. While sustainability is very theoretical (especially when population growth is exponential), striving to achieve sustainability needs to happen. Cap and Trade could potentially promote more sustainable technologies like nuclear, wind, solar, and tidal (I understand these aren't fully sustainable). What's so bad about that? Is it simply the capital investment required? Is it the lobbying that's going to occur on Wall Street? Lobbying is going to occur on Wall Street regardless..."

I agree here. Actually the idea behind innovation and capitalism is that as long as things are profitable now (ahem oil selling tons of gas to people who are thirsty for it) it won't change untill it is not profitable which means either running out and demand spiking the price or putting taxes on it to reduce demand.

With added taxes or with supply eventually running out people will be screwed (just think of everyone with a big commute, and all the suburbs out there will disapear)

So all in all I think people are afraid of prices going up. But this will happen now or later... Although idk when.

So basically in the end we will be fine to matter what. Because with capitalism the only thing that sparks change is profits. So if we tax gas or what ever, people will innovate and invent new things that are more profitable.

As a disclaimer: I guess I am saying in the long run things will work, but that won't stop massive inflation for the time being cause by careless bill / what ever is going on with healthcare in the future.

I'll have to admit that this is the first I have heard of this bill. Where can I go to learn more about it? do you guys think it will be really as bad as some of you guys suggest? What about the healthcare side?

All opinions aside I think we can all worry about our money and our future if there really would be that much inflation. What can we do?

On occasion I actually pick up something from TMF that is worthwhile. Thank you, this blog coupled with another earlier today mentioning the Rolling Stone article/GS/next bubble served as my nuggets of learning today about the next bubble.

Like a phoenix from the ashes, financial minds are at work to create the next boom to pump up and line their pockets.

I'm all for alternative energy sources, but isn't this bill being sold as a way to "stop global warming/climate change"? I can't remember the source now (and I'm too lazy to search it out) but I read that even if this is passed and all goes to plan, its only supposed to reduce the temperature by 0.02 degrees by 2100.

That's an awful lot of economic strain for very little results if you ask me.

Obama’s ACES Act (cap and trade), however, will cost us much, much more than $7,000 per household! It will cost many of us our businesses. It will cost many of us our jobs. It will cost all of us our freedoms and our future.

Why is this bill not receiving more media attention? The mainstream media has been brainwashing us daily with global warming propaganda, but prefer that we don't understand the cap and trade scam.

The mainstream media is controlled by the same people who lied and did all they could to get Obama elected and who will benefit from the huge Ponzy scheme that is Obama's cap and trade.

General Electric (GE), for example -- through its NBC networks, including MSNBC and CNBC -- has done everything possible to make us swallow the global warming scam. Why? Because they stand to make BILLIONS at our expense. Not only is GE the largest wind turbine generator maker, but it may benefit as the sole “secondary market” trader of the cap and trade credits.

Regarding "green jobs," for every "green job" created, at least 2.2 regular jobs will be lost.

Every “green job” created with government money in Spain over the last eight years came at the cost of 2.2 regular jobs, and only one in 10 of the newly created green jobs became a permanent job, says a study released in April.

Obama used Spain’s green initiative as a blueprint for the United States. Dr. Gabriel Calzada, an economics professor at Juan Carlos University in Madrid, said the United States should expect results similar to those in Spain:

“Spain’s experience (cited by President Obama as a model) reveals with high confidence that the U.S. should expect a loss of at least 2.2 jobs on average, or about 9 jobs lost for every 4 created, to which we have to add those jobs that non-subsidized investments with the same resources would have created,” wrote Calzada in his report.

ReadEmAnWeep, what can we do? We can contact our representatives and demand that they defend us from Obama's scheme, which will kill the U.S. economy.

And we can make sure to remember who is voting in favor of the abomination that is cap and trade. They'll have to answer to us for killing our businesses, taking away our jobs, and helping Obama enslave us with his Ponzy scheme.

dkilgour16, a socialized health care system would certainly be horrendous, but cap and trade could be even more harmful.

Cap and trade will KILL companies, jobs and the U.S. economy. Our remaining companies are struggling to survive. If they have to pay even higher taxes and higher energy costs, they'll be forced to close or move to other countries, leaving more of us unemployed.

The "green jobs" and "innovation" that Obama promises are fairy tales. The real jobs lost will be far greater than the temporary "green jobs" and "innovation" will not happen in a poor, socialized economy. Who is going to invest in innovations and businesses if the government can take them away or if it's much cheaper and safer to do it in other countries?

That "leaked memo" BS is a full load. Post the memo if someone actually seen it.

MIT's 2007 study reaches no such $7000 conclusion. It applies to much different 2007 versions of C&T than the one proposed. The most stringent of which would amount to $1140/person ($4650/4 person household) in 2015, to increase at 4%/year (inflation).

It also does not consider any amount saved from economic gain of avoiding GHG warming, the worst case includes such things as building sea walls around coastal cities and loss of cropland, etc.

It always baffles me when folks don't think global warming is real. As a farmer, i have spent my 50 years watching the temperature every winter. We watch the temp with a network where all the farmers watch it together. As the cold front moves in the network alerts the farmers it is moving towards.

THEN WE GO OUTSIDE AND LIGHT THE HEATERS. We light heaters on millions of acres of crops night after night after night. All over the globe. Intentionally. Not carbon, not maybe, not particulate. All of those are important, and i believe in the analysis, for the most part, But the details are not needed.

I will say it again. every night, all over the planet, we warm ever larger percentages of the planet ON PURPOSE. That doesn't count that EVERY MOTOR of every sort is a heater. Your computer, your lights, your fridge, you FURNACE, your auto. EVERY MOTOR IS A HEATER, and they cover most of the globe.

Now, with a heater every 10 feet placed 'equidistant' over the majority of the globe, many with the INTENT to heat the area of your box (which butts up against your neighbors box), how could you not believe in global warming?

Cheap energy and cheap food in relation to the rest of the world is one of the large factors that allows the middle class American to have our consumption life style. This bill will simply reward the privileged class (it not free market at all) and tax the rest of us into wards of the state... so that giant sucking sound you hear after this passes will be the rest our industry moving to a lower cost venue.

If more people outside of CAPS knew what was going on we would have larger riots than Iran. But, when our police beat and shoot protesters like the Iran government (since they were out of some official protest zone or forgot the permit), the media would side w/ the government b/c it was the protester that caused the police to take action – what a double standard.

Give a person McDonalds, a Flat Screen TV and six pack of beer and take away any freedom you want! Sorry for the rant… but I feel better now!

I'm would to argure that credit, not "cheap energy and cheap food", is the reason the middle class has lived a "consumption life style."

And how is the upper class (other than GS execs, etc.) going to benefit from this more than the lower classes? When you say upperclass, I think familes with an income of ~$200,000 or higher. Assuming that the energy rebates aren't a completely fabricated story, the lower class will actually be (possibly fully) subsidized for energy cost hikes. $175 is the CBO's projected average accross all households.

If people inside of CAPS took their capitalism blinders off once in a while, maybe they would see that emissions reform isn't the end of the world. I'm all about making a buck just as much as the next guy - but at what cost?

I could agree that lately cheap credit did more for the consumer, but over the history of the US we’ve had a bigger advantage of food and energy cost vs. most other countries. Though even today the average US household spends 10-12% on food costs vs. 20ish % for other developed nations (I don’t know energy stats off the top of my head).

The COB cost of $175 is a headline (and a joke), the foot notes are much more telling… the lobbies are calling for $3k per family… so in the end is likely somewhere in the middle. Thus, I am not against environmental protection (just the type that could be proven, like clean water), but even if I give you credit that CO2 does affect the climate, this bill will to almost nothing to stop the rise of CO2 (currently at 375 ppm), its projected to hit 450 ppm by 2050. And since China and India likely will not enact caps this would only make the rise to 450ppm slow by a year or two at most. Not very effective IMHO… for making us very, very poor over the next 41 years.

Solaris - What is amazing to me is that people see huge complicated systems only through their own personal life experience prisms.

So as a 50 year farmer, you think, "I run heaters now, and before we didn't" therefore, (skip few steps here) there must be global warming.

Meanwhile, a particle physicist says there must be global cooling because of some phenomenon he focuses on.

My point is that the earth's climate is a very dynamic, very complicated model. So much so that NO ONE can accurately model climate performance at this point.

For goodness sakes, they can't even tell you accurately what the temperature in Tucson will be +/- 2 degrees 2 weeks from now, what makes anyone believe they can predict accurately what Global Temps will be in 100 years?

Well, if you are doing GW research, I recommend you bump up that temp as high as you can justify with your "model"... Because saying that temperature is varying as a result of solar activity (that huge ball of fire that really causes global warming, and thank goodness it does) much more than the effect of farmer heat lamps, will not get you any more research money.

I would think realizing that GS is part of the GW agenda would enlighten a few more folks about how crooked this system is, and how it favors those that prefer large centralized government (global governance) and penalizes the poor and middle classes around the world at the expense of the ruling elite.

NOT - You may find you can get your points across without calling people Morons. Sure Brad was making a silly point, but if you could keep the discourse civil, maybe he could be convinced.

You only get access to credit when you demonstate earnings potential...

Does anyone think we would have given one million dollar NINJA loans to day laboring painters in the Congo?

Credit was a recent cause of our problem.

We got to where we were by being a great manufacturer and great innovator as a country. Handicapping these skills with poorly arranged free trade agreements, poor tax policy, and now add to the growing list cap and trade.

Wonder where the socks you are wearing are made? Asia. Why? because businesses sit down with excel and add up the costs of doing business and employing people in the US and find that it is cheaper to do it somewhere else.

We should be working on making it easier to do business here, not harder. Oh well. We'll learn our lesson soon enough.

I think that what theclub55 was getting at (or at least this was my take on what he pointed out) was that the middle class will be punished and the upper class will not becuase... No matter what (added taxes from Cap and Trade, healthcare, or from the future taxes to pay off the trillions in current government debt) the upperclass won't feel the same pain that the lower class will becuase the overall added tax compared to salaries is such a huge difference. Any kind of flat tax only punishes the poor. While they struggle to pay it off and save anything the people that are well off well pay it with money to spare.